Death happens. Why not make it interesting?
The online competition to guess which famous people won't make it to the end of the current year. If they're elderly, ill, or just live a high-risk lifestyle, stick 'em in your team, and for each one whose death you correctly predict, you'll score points. DDP was dreamt up in Derby, England (hence the name...) by Big Iain back in 1996. Other hosts: Siegfried Baboon and Rude Kid (2003-7), Octopus of Odstock (2008-9), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), and Reptile (2020-23). Now the Committee of DI (2022), time (2024), and Banana (2023) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
Diahann Carroll was one of the entertainment industry’s last great glass ceiling-smashers: the first African-American with her own sitcom (Julia), the first African-American woman to win an Emmy and a groundbreaker as Dominique Deveraux in 80s shoulderpad-fest Dynasty. A performer from a young age, she first paid the bills as a model and regular in Ebony magazine. […]
Jose Jose was one of the most successful, popular and troubled artists in the entirety of Latin music. First breaking through with his song “El Triste” in 1970, Jose was soon dubbed “El Príncipe de la Canción” (“The Prince of Songs”) by Mexican media. Into the 80s, his music began to achieve popularity outside of […]
Dying back in August but with her death only making it to the papers a few months later, let’s pay our respects to actress Anna Quayle. A child actress (she first appeared on stage aged 3 in a production of East Lynne) Quayle’s first significant film role was as the girl who fails to recognise John Lennon […]
Two-time French president, two-time French prime minister, and a mortal enemy of both George W. Bush and Bono: Jacques Chirac has died aged 86. A promising rugby player in his youth, Chirac was an avowed Communist until his political views were dragged to the right during military service in Algeria. Upon returning to France he […]
Inspired to play guitar by the skiffle revolution, Larry Wallis was the gossamer-thin tie that bound the British summer of love, proto-metal and punk. Starting off his career with The Entire Sioux Nation (a bandname you probably couldn’t get away with today), he had short-lived spells with Bloodwyn Pig, UFO and Shergat before joining The […]
Suzanne Whang was a comedian and actor who was probably best known to the general public as the host of House Hunters, the show that set the format for every “rich people need to buy a home” programme that followed. However, she also went a pretty public battle with breast cancer that lasted some 13 years. […]
And the white man continues to keep Robert Mugabe down, ensuring that (as it stands) he has to share the title of most popular DDP hit for 2019… Fernando Ricksen joined Rangers in 2000 as part of Dick Advocaat’s Dutch revolution. He quickly acquired a reputation as a footballer who could start a fight in […]
Michael Edwardes, former chairman of British Leyland, was the country’s most famous businessman for a good half decade and arguably did more to spur the 1980s strain of business Thatcherism than anyone other than Maggie herself. Born in South Africa, where he was a promising squash player as a youth, he found himself at British […]
Akilisi Pohiva was the first commoner elected to the position of Tongan Prime Minister. Fittingly, his political career was characterised by clashes with Tongan monarchy: he was arrested for sedition in 2002 for claiming the king had a hidden fortune, and again in 2007 for his alleged involvement in the pro-democracy Nuku’alofa riots. He was […]
When it came to 1980s business reporting, T. Boone Pickens was straight out of central casting. He made his name, J.R. Ewing-style, with wildcat oil drills. He then became one of the era’s most fearsome corporate raiders, feared and loathed in equal measures across Wall Street. And he finished the decade as an unlikely environmentalist, pushing […]
